Publish a Mobile Game Without the App Store or Google Play

You've made your game and now you're up against the App Store and Google Play: developer account, fees to factor in, reviews, updates, and so on. It's not your area of expertise, and plenty of developers give up at this point, even though there's an alternative.

Publishing a mobile game on the stores

On Apple's side, a developer account costs $99 a year. Google charges $25, but other rules make the process even more complicated, like the requirement to gather 12 testers for 14 days before you can publish. Waiting days for a review only to get rejected anyway, paying 15 to 30% in commissions, sitting in endless queues for every update: that's the ordeal you'll have to get through.

For a studio launching a premium game, these constraints make sense. For someone who made a mini game on a Sunday evening and just wants people to play it, they're completely out of proportion.

Playing in the browser

An HTML5 game launches directly in the web browser. No download, no installation, just free hosting. All it takes is one click on a link and you're playing. This approach ticks exactly the right boxes for most indie developers:

• No developer account. No sign-up fee, no yearly subscription.
• No review. No queue, no risk of rejection.
• Instant updates. You replace the file and it's updated for everyone.
• Works everywhere. iPhone, Android, computer, as long as there's a browser.

The only requirement: the game has to fit in a single HTML file, with the CSS and JavaScript code included and no external resources. That's exactly what an AI will give you if you ask it for a web game. For the full method, see our guide on creating a game with ai, and to get the right format on the first try, our selection of the best prompts to create an html5 game.

One question remains: what do you do with that file? On your computer, you're the only one who can play it. It needs an online address, and ideally a place where players are already playing.

Publishing a mobile game on Hoora

That's where Hoora comes in. You import your HTML file and, within a second, it's available on the website and the app, playable by anyone. Your game joins the Hoora feed, where Hoora players can come across it. No hosting to set up, and no need to bother with store constraints.

Go to hooragames.com and click the purple "Import" button in the left-hand menu.

It only takes a few seconds:

1. Drop in your HTML file, and a playable preview appears right away.
2. Add a title and a description.
3. Publish.

It's free, and the only limit is a maximum file size of 100 KB. Your game becomes instantly playable by the community, on mobile and desktop alike, without anyone having to install anything.

Once it's live, it shows up on your creator profile, where you can follow its stats: views, likes, shares, and comments too. The neat part is that Hoora itself is on the stores: the app can be downloaded on Android and iOS, and it even has its own page in Gizmodo's download section. So your players get a real mobile app experience without you having to publish your own. For every detail of the import, see our guide on publishing your ai creations.

Should you give up on the stores for good?

Not necessarily. If you're developing big games with in-app purchases and a monetization strategy, the stores still make perfect sense. But if your goal is to get your game played by as many people as possible, quickly and at no cost, the web gets you there far more easily.

Before publishing, test your game on your own phone: see our guide on testing an html5 game on mobile.

Frequently asked questions about publishing a mobile game without a store

• Can you really publish a mobile game without a developer account? Yes, if your game is in HTML5 format. It runs in the browser, so it doesn't need to be submitted to a store or require a paid developer account.
• Will my game be playable on iPhone and Android? Yes. A web game runs on any device with a browser, with no separate version to maintain for each system.
• Is it really free? Publishing on Hoora is free. You save Apple's $99 a year, Google's fees and the commissions on sales.
• How do I update my game? Simply import a newer version of the file. The update is instant, with no new review.
• What format does my game need? A single standalone HTML file containing all the code, with no external resources, and weighing less than 100 KB. It's the format AIs generate naturally.
• How do I bring in players without a store? The feed brings in some of them, and you can speed things up, as explained in our guide on how to promote and publish your video game.
• Where do I host the game if I'm not going through a store? Importing to Hoora doubles as hosting. For other options, see our guide on hosting an html5 game for free.

The stores aren't the only road to mobile, and rarely the fastest. Grab your HTML file, import it, and your game can be running on anyone's phone tonight.